Haywire Modern Test Game: Operation Barkhane in the Sahel

My gaming buddy Steve passed through town and asked if I'd be interested in trying a new co-op modern ruleset called Haywire Modern. It's been quite a while since I had a chance to use my modern figures and terrain, so of course I jumped at the chance. 

This scenario took place in the Sahel during Operation Barkhane and pitted the French against Islamic jihadists. We had two 4-man Commandos Marine teams conducting a search an destroy mission for a BRDM-2 armored vehicle hidden in a village sympathetic to the jihadists. They were dropped remotely and hiked into the village.

The villagers went about their day as jihadist guards kept a lookout.

My team entered from the southwest, while Steve’s came in from the northeast.

My sniper climbed the rocks and spotted a few jihadist patrols, but not the BRDM-2. The rest of the team did their best to avoid being spotted by the patrols and a shepherd boy with his goats.

One jihadist patrol failed to see Steve's team.

However, a group of rooftop spotters saw movement in the rocks opened fire on Steve's leader.  The element of surprise had been lost.

As the civilians scrambled for cover, the shepherd boy also ran right into my team.

The jihadists managed to score a shot on Steve's leader.

My team had better luck, eliminating 3 jihadists before they realized I was there. 

With their positions now exposed, Steve called in two drone strikes, killing the rooftop shooters and the patrol on the north end of the village.

In the south of town, the jihadists returned fire and wounded my team leader. 

Steve's team entered the village and spotted the BRDM-2, but the first marine through was ambushed and started bleeding out from his wounds.

My team leader finished off the southern patrol, while another marine and the demolitions expert entered the village. 

Steven's corner devolved into a bloody shootout.

My demolitions expert was also spotted lurking amongst some crates and was severely wounded.  His support comrade moved up to kill one of his shooters with his light machinegun.

Luckily my sniper was able to reach the demolitions expert before he bled out, keeping him active on the mission.

The jihadists received reinforcements in the form of a drone operator and gunman.  

Steve managed to wipe out his attackers and start patching up his wounded marine.

Luckily the drone operator was pretty unskilled, with the first attack impacting the side of the building.

Both French teams began moving in to secure the BRDM-2, but would need the demolitionist to complete the mission. 

The jihadists tried another drone attack against the sniper, but it again ended in failure.

More jihadists started sneaking out of the buildings. The resulting firefight killed one of Steve's marines.

The demolitionist began wiring up the BRDM-2 while one of Steve's team breached the eastern wall. The French were looking to exit in a hurry and Steve also wanted to make sure the body of his dead marine wasn't left behind.

Islamic fanatics arrived and began pursuing the French.  The big question was if the wounded demolitionist could escape in time.  

The light machine gunner prepared to supply covering fire. 

Luckily the team were able to get behind cover and detonated the BRDM-2 just as the fanatics were passing by, wiping them out.

For a first game, I think things went relatively smoothly and we didn't spot any glaring issues in the rules. Neither of us had ever played a co-op game before and we enjoyed having the opportunity to fight on the same side. The enemy reveal and activation system was straightforward and provided enough surprise and danger to keep the game entertaining.  This was also promising for solo games, as we often don't have other players regularly available for modern wargaming.  One thing that would be interesting is to see if the rules have enough flexibility to allow another player to command the terrorist side and play head to head.   The rules are not currently  in stock at Modiphius (I believe Steve got his digital rules through a preorder), so I'll have to check back in later this year for a possible Christmas order.

Sahel Conflicts: Panhard ERC-90 Sagaie

JJG Print 3D expanded their modern French offerings with a new series of armored vehicles designed by Guaro3d. I took the opportunity to up-gun my Foreign Legion with some support vehicles. First up was the Panhard ERC-90 Sagaie, which was a light wheeled tank/armored reconnaissance vehicle that was used by the FFL from the 1980s through the 2010s. The model can be purchased in 1/56 or 1/50 scale for 28mm gaming, and I went with the larger version. This came out as 10.4cm (not including the gun barrel) x 5.0cm x 4.9cm.

For my vehicle, I based it on the appearance of these ERC-90s seen in western Africa as part Operations Serval and Barkhane, though I didn't have any of the seen stowage to add.

Source: Twitter

Source: Twitter

The kit didn't have all the surface detailing of an injection mold  scale model, but as a wargaming model, the detail was quite respectable. The only missing item that I wish was present on the kit was the machine gun for the turret railing. I didn't have an appropriate machine gun available in the bits box, so had to go without. To create an antenna, I went with some black airplane rigging rather than wire, as I figured the latter was more prone to damage during transport.

For the camo netting, I couldn't find anything in 1/48 scale, so was forced to use 1/35. It looked less refined than I wanted, but for an issue I'll mention shortly, I felt I needed to still use it.

The kit came in three pieces: the turret and two halves of the body, with the wheels printed in place. There were no registration pins to help with positioning and a bit of a gap in some spots, so filling and sanding were needed to get a reasonable seam. 

While the print quality was good overall, there were some issues with the turret that had to be addressed. First up was a missing set of smoke launchers; the green ones were present, but the brown ones only had the mounts and no tubes. I'm not sure if they broke off somewhere or there was an uncaught printing error, but they needed to be recreated. Luckily I was able to do that fairly easily with some plastic rod and paper strips. It wasn't a perfect match, but were close enough that I think  they wouldn't be noticed on the table.

The major issue with the turret was a pronounced upward curve of the gun barrel. I tried reshaping it multiple times using heat and weights, and while I made improvements, I could never get it to remain straight long term. After eventually breaking it with my efforts, I gave up and opted to fill the dip with camouflage netting.  While you can still spot the issue when you get down to tabletop level,  I felt it was much less noticeable from the usual players' vantage. 

 Overall, I'm happy with the final results and am looking forward to seeing how it performs on the table. 

Sahel Conflicts: More Terrorists, Troops, and Civilians

 I'm back with the last of my modern African figures; the storage box is finally full, so there will be no more expansions beyond this and the remaining vehicles on the painting table.

Motorcycles seem to be a popular mode of transportation in Mali for various militias and terrorist groups, and I received a few as part of my Miksa Miniatures Kickstarter pledge. They weren't enough to field a full unit, but Eureka Miniatures had a set of Australian SAS soldiers in headscarves that I converted.

As part of the conversion work, I ordered a Russian weapon sprue from Miniature Building Authority. Unfortunately, they were more 32mm in size and looked huge on the figures, so I had to try and cut them down a bit to make them look more appropriate. In the end, they were still oversized when compared to the Miska AK47, but I think it looked ok overall. Straps for the weapons were made from thin strips of plasticard.  

One of the stretch goals from the Miska Kickstarter was an insurgent with improvised rockets. I couldn't find any real world photos to help with painting, so used some Hamas rockets as references.

The final items from Miska in this update were a set of civilians. They were slightly taller than the Eureka civilians, but not enough to be distracting.  For clothing, I used some photos of civilians from the Timbuktu as reference.

To complete the civilians, I ordered a few herds of goats from Eureka. Depending on the scenario, they could either be static terrain pieces or join the civilians as moving variables/complications on the battlefield (perhaps with an IED tied to one of them).

Finally, I ordered some African militants off of Etsy that were designed by CombatOctopus. The figures were comparable in size with my other 3D prints, but one odd thing about them was that the head sizes were smaller than the other manufactures. To me, they looked like 25mm heads on 28mm bodies, particularly the heads in caps. However, I think they will be fine on the table. I left them as generic soldiers, and they will either function as poorly equipped Malian soldiers (they have no body armor), mercenaries, or bandits.

Sahel Conflicts: Terrainify Outcroppings for Tigharghar Mountains

While I had a fair amount of urban/village terrain for my Mali wargaming, I wanted to have more options for battles out in the countryside. In 2013, French and Chadian forces fought against the Islamist insurgents in the Tigharghar (Tegharaghar) Mountains of northern Mali during the Battle of Ifoghas, and I wanted to look for terrain that would be appropriate. The major terrain feature for this area appeared to be large piles of black basalt rock. 

Source: BBC

Source: Alamy

I considered making terrain for this out of high density foam, but was concerned that the tall rock spires needed wouldn't hold up well during transport between home and the gaming store.  Looking around for 3D prints, I found the eBay store for Terrainify and thought their Craggy Hills Outcroppings would  meet my needs.  I was a bit concerned with the resolution of the prints after looking at their photos, but I thought I'd give them a try and bought the unpainted large prints.

While the sculpt quality and style was just what I wanted, my concerns around the print resolution were justified, as you can see below.

If left as is, the prints would not have looked like the rocks in the area, and drybrushing would have been a real problem. As such, I decided to hand sand all the pieces. The plastic these were printed in was surprisingly hard (good for durability), so sanding took 30 minutes to 2 hours per piece, depending on size. But with all the nooks and crannies in the formations, it was impossible to remove all the print layers. I used some Squadron white putty to further conceal them, and in the end I was able to get them looking decent, though not completely free of lines. 

Left: Original texture Right: Sanded and filled

It took a lot more work than I expected (and I had some pretty sore hands after the sanding), but I was able to get them to a place that satisfied me. With the large scale prints, I had enough rocks to cover about a quarter or so of a 4'x6' table at a reasonable density for play.

To give a better idea of how big the formations are with a large size print order, here they are with some 28mm miniatures.

Outcropping A

Outcropping B

Outcropping C

Outcroppings D and E

Outcropping F

So I'm a bit torn with the product. I think the final rock formations will look great on the table and give the environmental feel I was trying to accomplish. However, for what I had to pay for these (approximately $190 USD with taxes), I think the amount of physical labor they required to look good was a bit unreasonable.